You’re reminded me of so many members of my family, who would say, as they held their magazine or book farther away from their aging eyes, “I need longer arms!”

In those cases, they usually dealt with the issue by obtaining new eyeglasses, but you’ve suggested an opposite aging effect: arms growing longer by the year. Perhaps, in the poem’s vision of the process, we end up in a place where our reach truly does exceed our grasp — that’s what a heaven’s for!

Thanks, I had forgotten about that phrase, used by many of my elders in the days when glasses were maybe a little bit less successful. I’ve never had that particular problem, but my optometrist did tell me once that I would be just fine if the world were to be found at the end of my nose. I suppose you can get that effect by leaning in a bit, a fitting metaphor for a not altogether bad way to live life!!